Ancil
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a Hulu release that speaks of pleasure and sex.
At 60-or-so years old, widowed teacher, Nancy Stokes (not her real name) has never experienced an orgasm. Her married sex life was unfulfilling, and she feels she’s wasted her life trying to do things “properly.” So to feel experience what pleasure feels like Nancy hires a sex worker addressed as Leo Grande. And that’s where the journey of pleasure begins for Nancy.
How does Leo Grande help Nancy?
When Leo Grande (also not his real name) arrives at her hotel room, he asks Nancy what her fantasy is. “To have sex? With you? Do you mind?” she answers, wracked with nerves.
The retired school teacher can’t exactly articulate what she wants to gain from their meetings (they have several more). But she makes a list of sexual activities her husband never wanted to try, and Leo happily agrees to help her check off the items.
She pays Leo for three sessions and when the sessions begin things start but nerves tend to get the better of her, and they fill up most of their time talking. Leo notices that she left having an orgasm off the list. But Nancy is not a rule-breaker and making this list is as wild as she gets. She doesn’t want to add that little line to her sheet. She wants to cross off each one on her list. The argument about adding that to the list ensues until finally, she gets what she wants, and he allows her, we assume, to perform fellatio.
In the third session, things go smoothly as they discuss about their personal lives and share insights but things take all the wrong turns when Nancy reveals that she is aware of Leo’s identity. After learning this Leo turns furious and tells Nancy that he is proud of what he is and the identity he has created for himself. Leo immediately decides to end their business relationship. Nancy is perplexed because she has been awakened and thought they could be friends.
How does ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’ end?
After being guilty of what Nancy did, she books one last session with Leo to apologize to him for overstepping. Leo then opens up about his life and tells that he told his brother what he did for a living and surprisingly his brother somehow expected the same. After this talk, Nancy realizes that she should have been more proud of her kids. She then calls their waitress, Becky Foster, over. Becky was one of Nancy’s students. Nancy apologizes for how she would shame Becky and the other girls by calling them “sluts.” She tells Becky that she’s learned that pleasure is a wonderful thing, and she introduces Leo to her as a sex worker.
After having their coffee Leo and Nancy go upstairs where they have sex and Nancy experiences her first orgasm. The curtains shut with Nancy standing naked in front of the mirror smiling and embracing her body.
What was filmmaker, Sophie Hyde’s take on the ending?
Sophie Hyde talked to cinemablend about her take on the movie where she said “It was really important to me that it was not a romantic story, that they were not gonna fall in love also because it just sold a lie that the only important relationships in our lives are ones that go forever and are romantic. And yet there are all these significant moments that could be fleeting or seasonal or long term that are crucial and important and change us and that isn’t about romance and that are not forever. I like to see those characters on screen, because I think it’s important to recognize that anybody that you could meet could shift and change you and open up your expectations of them.”
